It's my choice
by Traitor of All Traitors
Summary: What if things were different after the disappearance of Unit-04? What if fate was merciful to the few that needed to be spared unnecessary harm? What if Toji's sister was well enough to leave the hospital before NERV came to him with the offer to pilot Unit-03? What if he told them no…and they had to resort to a new tactic?


Creation began on 03-19-10

Creation ended on 10-08-14

Neon Genesis Evangelion

It's my choice

A/N: This time, while based on the manga, it gets started with the sixth volume on a lighter scale. I enjoy what-if possibilities and alternate universes and other such themes. Let's get to it!

Ritsuko Akagi probably felt the most intense headache of her NERV-related career. And while she couldn't say she disagreed with the thoughts of morality coursing through her mind, she couldn't say that what had happened fifteen minutes ago as she left the school that the children in the Marduk Institute were placed in was something she could agree with.

Toji Suzahara, the young man that had been selected to be the Fourth Child, had flat-out refused the offer of piloting an Eva, even when the bribe of getting his sister better medical care was used against him. He just told her, _"No thanks. I received a call from the hospital yesterday. My sister will be released to go home in just two days. I'm going to see her later today. I'm sorry you wasted your time here with me. Try Kensuke Aida. He likes those things, anyway."_

It was almost as if God himself knew what was to happen, and took steps to prevent it. But for Ritsuko, it only meant two things: NERV would have to try and convince him to reconsider…or they would be forced to try and find another candidate…and they probably wouldn't have time for that with the Dummy System still needing to be worked out some more. As she walked onward to the car that would escort her back to NERV HQ, Toji had gone off to the bathroom to wash his face. To think that he'd be presented with such an offer that he would choose to walk away from, even at the cost of his sister's health, which he put before himself.

_What nerve of NERV,_ he thought to himself, wiping the water off his brow. _Me pilot an Eva? Not in this lifetime or the next lifetime. My sister's more important to me than some giant robot, and I'm the only person that goes to the hospital to see her, with our dad and grandfather always at work. If something were to happen to me if I took the job offer, there'd be nobody there to be with her that cared about her._

Leaving the bathroom to return to class, he decided to put his visit to the principal's office out of his mind until he needed to recall it later on. It wasn't so important to him right now.

"Hey, Toji," went Kensuke to him as he sat back down at his desk, "what'd they want to see you for, anyway, man?"

"I'll explain later," he responded. "It's not that important."

-x-

"…So, he just refused, plain and simple?" Misato asked Ritsuko, as they were working with the earlier sync ratios of their pilots.

"Yep," she answered back, typing away on her keyboard. "Unit-03 arrives the day after tomorrow, and we're still a pilot short."

"We should just consider using the Dummy System with Unit-03," suggested Misato, who still needed the distractions that others had in order to figure out the Marduk Institute and so on after having so much doubt that the Fourth Child could be found so quickly.

"Not possible. There's still feedback errors with it," Ritsuko told her, _and the worst part is that Commander Ikari still wants the Suzahara boy to reconsider the position of an Eva pilot._

-x-

"Hey, Shinji, can I ask you something?" Toji asked his friend, as they were walking down the street after school was let out.

"Sure," he responded him, stopping to lean against a building.

"Were you…scared when you got into the Eva the first time?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Remember when I was called to the principal's office today?"

"Yeah."

"A woman with blond hair and a mole on her face came and asked me to be a pilot. She told me that if I joined up, my sister could get better medical care at that trauma unit y'all have at NERV…but I told her 'no', that my sister was getting better now after months of being in the hospital. I probably would've said that I'd join if my sister wasn't getting any better, but then I'd be shaking and all sorts of nervousness. Please, tell me I was in the right to refuse, that I wasn't wrong to say 'no' to them."

Shinji thought about for three seconds and expressed, "You were in the right, and if what you said about your sister is true, that she is getting better, then you had every right to say 'no'. Plus, I wouldn't want to worry about you suffering the way I have, being a pilot."

"Thanks, Shinji. Well, see you tomorrow." Toji told him, and left to cross the street to go down to the hospital to see his sister.

_Of course he wasn't wrong,_ Shinji thought to himself. _He had every right in his heart to refuse. A woman with blond hair and a mole on her face? That sounds an awful lot like Dr. Akagi. Could the woman that he was talking about been her? I'm going to have a serious chat with Misato about this._

The only thing he had that was positive about walking alone at times like this during the days was that Asuka wasn't with him. That girl seriously had problems and invaded his space too much, and not to mention that she loves to hear herself talk. He didn't need the migraine that was her right now, for he was still getting over what had happened during his time at the aquarium with Kaji.

"Protecting the world from the Angels… That's what people say that the Evas are for, and yet…that's what I wish to believe for myself…and I don't believe it. My own mother built the Evas? She should've just stuck to a more beneficial science, like what people would do in the movies to help people. Terraforming doesn't seem like such a bad way to practice science. Why couldn't she have done that?"

Upon arriving back to the apartment, he saw Asuka had arrived, as well, looking like she did every other day: Like she had a bad mood that couldn't be gotten over.

"Hey, Asuka," he greeted kindly, even when he knew that she wasn't going to be kind back with her personality being the way it was.

"What do you want, Third?" She asked him, always calling him that, and he ignored her and walked away toward the elevator. "Hey, don't you dare walk away from me!"

"I just did," he told her back as he stepped into it. "What's got your feathers in a bunch today?"

"What, don't you know?"

"Know, what?"

"Who the Fourth Child is?!"

"What?! If you're talking about Toji, he told me already, and he told me that he refused."

"What?! He refused?!"

"That's right, he refused."

"Why'd he refused?"

"He only told me as much as he was willing to tell me, and he told me that a woman with blond hair and a mole on her face came to him in the principal's office and asked to him to be a pilot and that his sister would get better medical care if he agreed to. He told her 'no' and that his sister was getting better already. He even asked me if he was in the right to refuse, and I told him he wasn't wrong. He had every right to say 'no' to being an Eva pilot."

"Surely, he couldn't just say 'no'."

"Asuka, he said 'no', and that's that. End of story."

"What kind of a stooge just says 'no' to being an Eva pilot? It's privilege and an honor."

"A guy that vented his rage on the Eva pilot that fought the Third Angel and caused his sister to get hospitalized in the first place and was passed off as collateral damage and nearly beat him into pulp for it, that's who."

"What? You were beat up by him when you both met? The Third Angel attack was months ago."

"And his sister has been in the hospital ever since because of my involvement with the Eva."

"Why didn't you fight better earlier?"

"…I don't have to tell you that. You wouldn't believe me, you would pass it off as bull."

"Answer me, baka!"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, so I won't explain the reason. It doesn't matter, anyway."

"Tell me what happened!" When the elevator reached their stop, he got off and walked away from her. "Hey, you'd better tell me what happened that day!"

"Asuka, that's enough!" He told her. "It doesn't matter. It's history! It's not even your business! Leave it alone now, please!"

They stepped into the apartment and Shinji went to his room, leaving Asuka alone in the hallway.

As night took its reign over Tokyo-3, Toji, having left the hospital after meeting his sister and seeing that she was happy to be leaving the place the day after tomorrow, was now heading home to do his homework and eat. The day after tomorrow he'd be able to see his sister at home where she could finish her recovery. He'd never seen her with such a large smile on her face when the doctors had told her the news. She couldn't wait to leave.

_Little sisters,_ he thought humorously.

Upon reaching his apartment, he noticed his father there, as well, assuming he had gotten off of work and just got back.

"Hey, Dad," he greeted him.

"Hey, Toji," he responded, although he didn't seem happy. "I heard what happened at school today."

"What do you mean?"

"Someone from NERV came to see you in the principal's office and asked you to be a pilot for one of their Evas, only you refused."

Toji frowned, knowing that something like this was going to happen. Just because he was given an offer that he turned down willingly, people were either going to leave him be and drop the subject or bore him with the chances to reconsider his choice. Now, his own father, of all people, was going try and get him to take the offer.

"What does it matter to you, anyway?" He asked him.

"What did the person look like?" He asked back.

"A woman…with faux-blond hair and a mole on her face, just under her left eye."

"There's only one person I've seen at NERV that fits that description: That MAGI scientist, Ritsuko Akagi. She and I are going to have words, I swear."

"Huh?"

"Everyone was spreading a rumor during lunch that a kid matching your description had refused to be an Eva pilot. Everyone except myself was informed of this. I wanna know why you told her 'no'."

"It was my sister. She gets out the day after tomorrow. I was told if I agreed, she'd get better medical care…but that wasn't necessary because she had already recovered enough. If it were the opposite, I would've probably said 'yes'. I'd done anything for Mayo. Anything."

Mr. Suzahara could tell that, even when they didn't see each other as much as they used to, even before the Angels had started showing up, his son cared more for his sister than he did anything else, and wouldn't have thrown his life away that easily to help her unless it was beneficial, with no strings.

"I'm proud that you refused," he told his son.

"Really?"

"Yeah. It hasn't been good for any of us since your mother passed away, and I can't bear the thought of losing any of the rest of my family because of a war we don't even understand clearly."

"It'd probably be easier if we did understand it all clearly."

-x-

Sleep didn't come to Shinji that night. Although Toji told him he had refused to be an Eva pilot, he still felt uneasy about everything else he had heard from Kensuke. About how one of the two Evas being built in the States had just disappeared…along with the entire NERV branch in the Nevada desert somewhere, and how the other Eva was being transported to Japan to get rid of it to prevent a similar devastation from occurring. And then, there was what Kaji told him shortly after seeing that giant Angel at NERV, about why it seemed the other Angels they've encountered just seemed to come toward Japan, ignoring every other part of the world, and how he had a responsibility to know the truth, though that was something he didn't want at all.

As much as he could've believed this, he didn't accept everything he had learned. The estrangement between his father and him, the loss of memory of his mother, along with everything else that has been going on ever since he arrived in Tokyo-3. It was like something was going to happen, and fate and fortune were trying to tip the scales in one another's favor.

-x-

"…We may have no choice but to use the Dummy System," Ritsuko suggested to Gendo, after every conventional method of persuasion had been attempted to convince the Suzuhara boy to join NERV. "It still has some errors, but it's within the acceptable range of compatibility with Unit-03."

"Very well, then," Gendo accepted, though he had been displeased with the complete refusal of the Suzuhara boy to join NERV as the Fourth Child. "Begin preparations immediately."

As NERV prepared the prototype Dummy Plug in the Geo-Front to be transported to the secondary base for the initial start-up of Unit-03, in the city above, just leaving the hospital with a little girl in a wheelchair, Toji picked up his sister and escorted her home.

"I'm sorry our dad couldn't come with me to get you," he apologized to Mayo.

"It's okay," she told him. "Daddy has to work. But you came to get me."

The girl had recovered to the point where her left leg was only covered in minor bandages so they could be removed later. Her right arm and forehead were also covered in minor bandages so they could be removed later today when she got home.

-x-

"…I'll be back in two days," Misato told Shinji, set to walk out the door.

"Do be careful," he told her, and she left out.

-x-

"…So, will the Dummy Plug be enough?" Misato asked Ritsuko, watching as Unit-03 was being checked for the umpteenth time by the maintenance crew that was there.

"It should be," she explained the specifics of the device. "It has all the thought patterns of the First Child installed, so all the Eva needs to do is synchronize with the thought patterns. It's, more or less, a machine that's designed to fool the Eva into thinking that an actual pilot is inside the plug."

"I don't know if this is even right," the purple-haired woman told the faux-blond woman. "There are certain lines that just shouldn't be crossed."

"Beginning insertion of the plug," went a technician, just as a large machine moved around the makeshift cage Unit-03 was inside and inserted the red Entry Plug into the back of the black behemoth.

The plug disappeared into the Eva and the back of it closed up.

"Initiate Dummy Plug," Ritsuko commanded.

"Initiating Dummy Plug," another technician announced.

"If this test goes well, this new Eva goes under your command," Ritsuko informed Misato.

"If NERV had control over four Evas, any one person could take the world for themselves," Misato told her, though this was more for sarcasm's sake than being literal.

"Approaching absolute borderline."

"Absolute borderline passed. Unit-03 is now activated."

Suddenly, the alarm went off, sending everything into shades of red.

"Something's wrong with Unit-03!" Someone shouted.

The black Eva began moving on its own accord, its back rising up and the armor looking like it was budging and straining, like something was trying to escape it.

"Eject the plug!" Ritsuko ordered.

"An Angel?" Misato wondered, seeing one of the monitors alerting the people to a blue code pattern.

Then, a large explosion came and trashed everything.

-x-

"Hmm?" Toji went, just as he finished making sandwiches for himself and his sister. "Must be my imagination."

-x-

It had only been after Shinji was made aware that there wasn't a pilot within the plug inside Unit-03 that he fought against the infected Evangelion. It was only after he was guaranteed that he wasn't going to harm an innocent person trapped within the behemoth that he destroyed said behemoth to keep others out of harm's way. But what enraged him was the cold belief that Toji could've been inside the Eva, that one of his friends would've been in danger if they had been trapped inside the plug. It was enough to drive him mad with the knowledge that, had Toji accepted the position of a pilot, he could've been in a situation that had no proper solution, no walking away unharmed.

"Damn it," he panted, through with ripping the Eva to pieces, trying to catch his breath now. "Damn it, damn it, damn it."

Beside Unit-01's left leg was the Dummy Plug, covered in LCL and artificial muscles and nerves, laying there unscathed.

-x-

"…Hmm, I wonder if Toji will like this tomorrow," went Hikari, looking through a cook book at a meal that Toji might've liked.

-x-

Misato had never seen Shinji like this before; he looked wasted in his anger.

"Shinji?" She asked him, and he turned to face her.

"It could've been him, Misato," he told her, referring to Toji. "It could've been him."

She wouldn't deny that he might've been right about that. It had been only blind luck that they went ahead with the use of the Dummy Plug rather than a pilot.

-x-

She didn't want to sleep in her room tonight, so Toji let Mayo sleep in his room. As the night hours continued to go by outside, the young man looked up at the window from the off the floor, unable to sleep for the moment.

_Me? An Eva pilot?_ He thought, thinking of the offer he'd been given by NERV. _No way would I do it. It's already hard enough on Shinji as it is. There's no way I could handle what he and the girls do all the time._

A shooting star flew past the other stars, and Toji made a childish wish for his sister be well the next day they woke up.

End

A/N: Well, another of many stories started years ago is finally finished. I don't expect this to get any reviews, but for those that feel that Toji was treated unfairly, please send reviews to me! Peace!


End file.
